CHAPTER 4

Becoming an Ethical Professional Lecture slides prepared by Lisa J. Taylor

Declining Morality?

1. We have eliminated many of the opportunities for the teaching of morals.

2. The community is not a cohesive force any longer.

3. The authority of religion is not as pervasive as it once was.

4. The family is weakening as a force of socialization.

5. Educators have abdicated their responsibility for moral instruction in favor of scientific neutrality.

U.S. Leaders Acting

Unethically

• John Edwards, potential presidential nominee

• Eliot Spitzer – Former New York governor, district attorney, and attorney general

How Does One Become a Good Person?

Deterministic

• Biology

• Psychology

• Sociology

• Criminology

Free Will/Agency

• Religion

• Philosophy

Fields of study seek to answer this question with free will acknowledged to greater or lesser degrees.

Why do People Act Unethically?

• Does biology play a role?

- Nature?

• Is modeling and/or reinforcement lacking?

- Nurture?

• Does it have to do with moral development?

• Could it be a combination of things?

Theories of Moral Development

BIOLOGICAL FACTORSBehavior depends on an individual’s biological predispositions.

LEARNING THEORIESBehavior depends on the rewards an individual has received.

DEVELOPMENTAL THEORIESBehavior depends on an individual’s intellectual and emotional

stage of development, which in turn depends on their environment.

Biological Theories

Recent research suggests individuals may be predisposed to certain types of behavior due to the biology of their brains.

Frontal Lobe Damage

May result in increased impulsiveness, decreased attention span, difficulty in logical reasoning and following instructions, and antisocial behavior.

Cortical Limbic Network

• Structured event knowledge

• Social perceptual and functional features

• Central motive and emotional states

Disruptions in the network can limit the ability to respond to ethical dilemmas.

Sex Differences

Inherited Trait

• Men’s brains function differently than women’s.

• Statistically, men are more likely to be antisocial, to have serious childhood conduct disorders, and to commit serious offenses.

Socio-biology

• Certain traits support the survival of the species

• Moral “senses”: sympathy, fairness, self-control, and duty

• Individual inheritance or group selection (evolution)

• Morality seems to lie in the inferior parietal lobe (rationality) but also in the “emotion” center of the brain (amygdala)

Learning Theories

Modeling Imitating the behavior of

others Parents and other

adults provide role models for children through their behavior

Premise: All human behavior is learned; therefore, ethics is a function of learning rather than reasoning.

Reinforcement • A behavior that is rewarded

will be repeated• After enough reinforcement,

the behavior becomes permanent

• The individual develops values consistent with the behavior (cognitive dissonance)

Bandura: “Selective Disengagement”

or Moral RestructuringMoral justification: Appeal to a higher end (e.g., terrorists who are fighting for a cause).

Euphemistic labeling: Downplaying the seriousness of actions (e.g., “collateral damage”).

Advantageous comparison: Act isn’t as bad as some others (e.g., “What was done at Abu Ghraib wasn’t as bad as what the insurgents did who cut off the heads of civilian contractors.”).

Displacement of responsibility: Denies culpability (e.g., “I was only following orders.”)

Diffusion of responsibility: Mob actions

Distortion of the consequences: Misidentifying the consequences of one’s actions (e.g., CEO who gives the order to pollute merely requests that the problem be “taken care of”).

Dehumanization: Process to strip the victim of any qualities of similarity that may create sympathy (e.g., the use of terms such as gooks, slant-eyes, pigs, wetbacks).

Developmental Theories

1. They involve qualitative differences in modes of thinking, as opposed to quantitative differences.

2. Each stage forms a structured whole; cognitive development and moral growth are integrated.

3. Stages form an invariant sequence; no one bypasses any stage, and not all people develop to the higher stages.

4. Stages are hierarchical integrations.

Premise: Moral development, like physical growth, occurs in stages.

Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development

Pre-Conventional Level Approach to moral issues motivated purely by personal

interests.

Stage 1: Punishment/Obedience Orientation

Stage 2: Instrument/Relativity Orientation

Conventional Level Approach to moral issues motivated by socialization.

Stage 3: Interpersonal Concordance Orientation.

Stage 4: Law-and-Order Orientation.

Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development

Post-Conventional Level Approach to moral issues motivated by desire to discover universal good beyond own self or own society.

Stage 5: Social Contract Orientation

Stage 6: Universal Ethical Orientation

Post-Post-Conventional LevelApproach to moral issues moves beyond the human to a cosmic or religious level of awareness. Kohlberg only speculated that this stage might exist.

Stage 7: Transcendental Orientation

Corruption at the

Border

• Between 2003 – 2010, 129 U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents were arrested on corruption charges.

• Corrupt officers could earn up to $60K per day—the equivalent to a year’s salary

• In 2009, it was reported that some Mexican smuggling cartels groom their workers to apply for border patrol jobs as a part of a long range plan to smuggle.

• U.S. Border Patrol Agent Martha Garnica – Arrested, convicted, and sentenced to 20 years after trying to recruit a fellow border agent into the racket of protecting smugglers

Criticisms of MoralDevelopment Theory

• Justice/Western Bias: Stages center too much on the concept of justice, ignoring other aspects of morality.

• Value Bias: Justice, rules, and rights are emphasized as higher values than caring and relationships.

• Deontological Bias: The higher stages are based on deontological assumptions about universal ethical principles.

• Rationality Bias: Emphasizes reason in moral decisions while ignoring emotional factors.

• Gender Bias: Emphasizes traditionally “male” values and virtues.

• Belief = Action?: Difficult to link reasoning levels with moral action in particular situations.

Factors Necessary for Moral Growth

• Encouragement to examine situations from other points of view

• Exposure to individuals whose thinking is a stage higher than one’s own

• Exposure to conflicts in moral reasoning that challenge one’s present stage

• Engagement in logical thinking, such as reasoned argument and consideration of alternatives

• Responsibility for making moral decisions and acting on them

• Participation in creating and maintaining a just community

Teaching Ethics (Sherman)

Stimulate the "moral imagination" by posing difficult moral dilemmas.

Encourage the recognition of ethical issues beyond immediate goals.

Help to develop analytical skills and the tools of ethical analysis.

Elicit a sense of moral obligation and personal responsibility.

Explore the morality of coercion, which is intrinsic to criminal justice.

Help students recognize the difference between technical and moral competence.

Address the full range of moral issues in criminology and criminal justice.

Jack Abramoff

• An former U.S. lobbyist, businessman, movie producer, & writer.

• Extensive corruption investigation that led to his conviction and to 21 persons either pleading or being found guilty.

• After a guilty plea in the Indian lobbying scandal and his dealings with Sun Cruz Casinos in January 2006, he was sentenced to 6 years in federal prison for mail fraud, conspiracy to bribe public officials, and tax evasion. He served 43 months in prison and was released in 2010.

• Wrote the book, Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Corruption From America's Most Notorious Lobbyist.

• Since his release, he has taught ethics.

Corruption Continuum

• Indifference towards integrity.

• Ignoring obvious ethical issues.

• Creating a fear and hypocrisy dominated culture.

• Maintaining a survival of the fittest environment by individual employees.

Gardner’s Cognitive Capacities

• The “disciplined mind”—the ability to focus and learn a field of study.

• The “synthesizing mind”—the ability to integrate diverse ideas into a coherent whole.

• The “creating mind”—the ability to recognize and solve problems.

• The “respectful mind”—the ability to form and maintain good relationships with other people.

• The “ethical mind”—the ability to fulfil one’s responsibilities as a citizen and to identify with fellow humans.

How Leaders Can Foster Ethics (Metz)

1. Establish realistic goals and objectives.

2. Provide ethical leadership (set a moral tone by actions).

3. Establish formal written codes of ethics.

4. Provide a whistle blowing mechanism.

5. Discipline violators of ethical standards.

6. Train all personnel in ethics.

Ethical Leadership

• Strong leadership involves caring and commitment to the organization.

• Idealistic realism: the ability of good leaders to acknowledge and understand social realities while avoiding the trap of cynicism.

• Ethical leaders possess vision and moral responsibility and engage in enlightened reasoning.

Thinking Point

The police chief in Bell, California was under investigation for accepting a salary of $457,000 per year. Chief Randy Adam’s salary is double that of LAPD’s police chief Charlie Beck. The city of 40,000 consists of blue collar workers and has a higher than average poverty rate.

Is Chief Adams displaying ethical leadership?

Why or why not?

Does accepting the salary automatically make him an unethical

leader?

Ethical Choices forCriminal Justice Professionals

• Friendship vs. institutional (integrity/professionalism)

• Client (offender) needs vs. bureaucratic efficiency and institutional goals.

• Personal goals or biases vs. fair and impartial treatment of the public and the clients served.

The inappropriate use of discretion occurs when the professional uses unethical criteria to resolve decisions.

Avoiding Cynicism and Burnout

1. First, adopt realistic goals before entering the profession.

2. Second, find and nurture a network of mentors and colleagues that promotes ethical values.

3. Third, seek self-fulfillment and personal enrichment.